Debt Consolidation and Credit Card Counseling

Identity theft and depleted bank accounts could come if you are not careful

The Internet is a useful tool that allows many of us to conduct business and commerce from our homes or offices without having to go somewhere to do so. It’s a great place to shop, bank or sell, but it is becoming more and more dangerous each and every day as criminals create ever more clever ways to trick us into divulging our personal information to them. In this continuation of our article on internet fraud, we will outline some additional scams that should be avoided.

Pharming scam - Similar in concept to a phishing attack, a pharming attack uses some software trickery to fool a user into visiting a fake Website for a bank or other institution when the user thinks he or she is actually visiting a real one. The trick involves some malicious code that must be downloaded to the user’s computer. When the user types in the name of a real Website, such as that of their bank, their Web browser is tricked into redirecting them to the fraudulent site. This type of attack is best avoided using spyware detection software, such as Spybot.

Get Rich Quick Schemes - We received one just yesterday that promised us that we could make $1000 per day by only doing three hours of work each day on our computer. No details were offered, but it was only going to cost us $97 to find out the “secret” of making a thousand dollars per day. Here’s the scam - someone charges you $97 to tell you that if you write a book and sell it for $97, suckers will buy it. If it sounds too good to be true...

Foreign Lottery - We get these all the time - a message telling us that we have won a portion of the proceeds from some foreign lottery. WOW! We didn’t even know we had entered a foreign lottery. Then we remembered - we didn’t enter a foreign lottery, because doing so is illegal. It doesn’t matter, because the message is lying. What they want is for you to send them some money as a processing fee. Once you do that, they will send you your winnings. Well, probably not. They will just keep your money, and that is that. There is a common theme here that runs through a lot of such scams - “You have a lot of money coming to you if you will just send us some money now.” Stay away. Even better - run away.

Drugs - This one won’t go away. We must see twenty messages a day offering us discounted Viagra, Cialis, or any one of a number of other name brand pharmaceutical products. Some of these ads may be legitimate, but most are probably just attempts to get you to provide your credit card number. Would you buy drugs from someone who sent you an unsolicited e-mail message? Some people must be doing so, because the messages keep coming. Stay away. They probably just want your credit card number.

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